If they let it be the final seashore...
by Suzume Tori
Summary: Songficcie... Shinji reflects on his actions, only much less calmly than the word implies...


Heya!!! Wassuper, peopleses? Okays… You have no idea how many unfinished fanfics I have on my comp… thank goodness I haven't posted them all; I might crash the server or something… Oh, and in here there are some refrences to 'the final seashore', and the 'final death'… those are best explained by the literal translation, but when the part is named 'the final messanger', the characters can also mean 'the final death', and when said out loud, the sounds can also mean 'the final seashore'… Kaworu Nagisa means 'fragrance of the seashore'… and yeah, um, that's…sort of all probably confusing you… Heck, I'm still sorting it out…  
  
Well, believe it or not (I know, you're probably all leaning towards NOT) I'm starting a fanfic that I intend to finish… It's a songfic, tho, based on songs by linkin Park. I don't own them, or their songs. WaahhH!!! Or, for that matter, Evangelion or any of the characters. Suing someone like me with none of these would be really cruel, then, right? See the logic?  
  
Personal disclaimer: My disclaimers get weirder every time, my beloved chipmunk-feeding rainbow gazelles…  
* * *  
At the bottom of the rubble in Dogma, the broken pilot lay, wide navy eyes seeing both everything and nothing. Seeing nothing before him, just within him – EVERYTHING was forgotten but a long-lipped, pale smile, forgiving even upon death – a peaceful *severed* *head* floating somewhere in the sea of LCL…  
  
  
---"FORGOTTEN:  
From the top to the bottom   
Bottom to top I stop   
At the core I've forgotten   
In the middle of my thoughts   
Taken far from my safety   
The picture is there   
The memory won't escape me   
But why should I care "  
---  
  
  
  
Thusly he breathed in and out, lungs taking in only the air of betrayal, of disbelief… And the unshakeable image remained stubbornly inside him, till he clawed at his unseeing eyes in hopes of drawing some of his mind to the outside world. Praying, he willed some obscurity to leak in his mind, to erase the picture as his own Koi had been erased…   
/Please/ the lost boy trembled /Let it all stop. Even death and darkness would be preferable to such torture… Stop! STOP!/  
/He LEFT me!/  
/Killed him…? No! NO! NO!!! NO!!!!/  
And at last, Shinji was consumed with shadows, but it was a darkness without the peace or ignorance he had imagined, for in such a 'darkness', nightmares reigned…  
"There's a place so dark you can't see the end"  
Crawling through this realm of nightmares, the lost one stumbled upon memories… Forced to kill Toji… yes… a boy who was his one of his only friends, and he couldn't even defend him… from himself. Then why had he opened up to Kaworu? SHOULDN'T HE HAVE KNOWN? WHY? KAWORU IS DEAD! DEAD! Could… could it have been any other way? What if he had been more distant, and not leaked his vulnerability into Kaworu, where sympathy readily rested? Would Kaworu be alive? Shouldn't Kaworu be alive – not him? It was all his fault, then?  
  
  
  
---"(Skies cock back) and shock that which can't defend   
The rain then sends dripping acidic questions   
Forcefully, the power of suggestion"  
---  
  
  
Finally, he woke, stumbling through to see his surroundings at last, all the familiar bits and pieces rusted into his memory by force till the cockpit of the giant eva was like his home, and – and –   
The head floated up through its crimson grave to smile at it's murderer.  
  
  
  
---Then with the eyes tightly shut looking thought the rust and rotten dust   
A spot of light floods the floor   
And pours over the rusted world of pretend   
The eyes ease open and its dark again"   
---  
  
  
  
Shinji screamed as his dull awareness was once more shattered with a reality that was more confusing and painful than any nightmare. The face before him held the thoughts secret behind the crimson eyes – what *had* his victim thought, upon death?  
No other child would reach for nighmares as a sanctuary, but no other child had ever seen a reality as unbearable as his was now. No other child had such a mind that spun around and around with the same cruel visions… Kaworu… Oh Kaworu… Please, please…  
He didn't even know quite what he was pleading for, anymore…  
  
  
---In the memory you'll find me   
Eyes burning up   
The darkness holding me tightly   
Until the sun rises up   
---  
  
  
  
… And then Misato's voice slithered onto the intercom, trying at soothing and just sounding… smothered and false.  
"Come on up, Shinji. He's dead, and we need to get your Eva repaired…"  
/NO!/   
/HE'S NOT DEAD! NO, NO, NO!/  
/He was NOT THE FINAL MESSANGER!/  
/But… please… let this be the final death…/  
/DON'T LET THAT BE THE LAST SEASHORE! NAGISA!/   
He slammed a great, armored fist into the wall. Thrashing, he plummeted straight to the heart of the great room, tearing off the head of Lilith, the lie that had been the beginning of Kaworu's fall… Crazed, he sank giant teeth into Lilith's heart…  
"DID YOU ALL KNOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN? DID YOU?! DAMMIT, ANSWER ME! AND YOU! LILITH! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! HE WASN'T MEANT TO DIE! HE WAS *MINE*, AND YOU WEREN'T EVEN THE ANGEL THAT WOULD END THE WORLD! YOU COULDN'T EVEN BE _THAT_ WHEN YOU WERE NEEDED!!!"  
But… The dreadful, quiet voice in the back of his head suggested casualy… are you sure that it wasn't just all your fault?  
  
And suddenly, to his horror, he could not blame the mangled body before him.  
  
  
  
---"Moving all around   
Screaming of the ups and downs   
Pollution manifested in perpetual sound   
The wheels go round and the sunset creeps past the   
Street lamps, chain-link, and concrete   
A little piece of paper with a picture drawn   
Floats on down the street till the wind is gone   
The memory now is like the picture was then   
When the paper's crumpled up it can't be perfect again"   
---  
  
  
"Shinji?" Came Misato's voice again, questioning, "You have killed him. You can come back. You did very well. But now it's time to come back up…"  
And smiling heads were forming a ring around his thoughts, so he could barely hear her… Going, and going, and his fault, and again, and still smiling, time for another take, again, again, and dead, and gone, and ALL HIS FAULT…  
  
  
  
---"Now you got me caught in the act   
You bring the thought back   
I'm telling you that   
I see it right through you"   
---  
  
  
  
Trudging towards the entrance, he let loose his last scream, vowing from all shows of emotion lest he hurt another.  
Till he thought of his father, and a grim smile grew…  
  



End file.
